1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a disc playing system, and more particularly to a disc playing system which stores a plurality of discs and is capable of continuously playing discs in an arbitrarily selected order.
2. Description of Background Information
As an example of the disc playing system of this type, a disc displaying system is described in Japanese Patent Application No. 56-67396. In this disc playing system, a plurality of discs is stored in a disc storing part and juxtaposed in a predetermined space. A disc playing means is slidable along the direction of the arrangement of the discs, and a detection means is provided for detecting the position of the disc playing means relative to each storing slot of the disc storing part. The detection means is, for example, made up of a perforated plate and a light sensor having a light emitting element and a light receiving element. The disc playing means is translated along the direction of the disc arrangement and the stop position is controlled in accordance with the output signal of the light sensor so that the disc playing means stops at the position of a selected disc. The playing of the selected disc is performed after the disc is moved from the disc storing part to the playing position by means of a disc transportation means.
With this disc playing system, when a plurality of discs is to be played in succession, the already played disc is returned to the slot of the disc storing part by means of the disc transporting means. Then, the disc storing slot which stores the disc to be played next is searched and the playing means is translated to the position of the searched slot. The selected disc to be played next is then moved from the slot to the playing position by means of the disc transportation means.
Thus, in the case of this disc playing system, the correspondence between each of the discs and each of the disc storing slots is not to be altered once it is determined. Since the position of the disc, i.e., the destination of the translation of the disc playing means, is determined according to the disc number assigned to each disc, the period between musics required for changing the disc may become excessively long if the positions of two discs in the disc storing part are greatly away from each other as compared with the space between adjacent two discs. Further, the problem becomes serious if the distance between the storing positions of two discs which are played frequently is very large.